Parents sue children for maintenance

Seventy-five-year-old Parvati fights a long legal battle to win compensation from her son, reports Aditya Ghosh.

Finally, 75-year-old Parvati Parab can meet her son, thanks to a court order.

Even if the venue is a courtroom, on February 9, she wants to ask Dilip why he left for the US without telling her. "I wanted to know what faults I had committed in bringing him up that he should behave this way with me," she says.

Parab had fought a two-year-long battle in the family court to win a Rs 4,000-a-month compensation from her son.

At the Mumbai Family Court, this is not an isolated incident. Lawyers are flooded with cases filed by parents against their sons and daughters.

So, Manjula Shah (name changed) waits outside the courtroom in the hope of being granted maintenance from her son, while Arpan Desai (name changed) tries to resist his daughter's decision to pack him off to an old-age home.

"About 10 per cent cases are filed by parents against their offspring, demanding maintenance," said Sandhya Sharma, secretary of the Family Court Bar Association.

"Most complaints are from the middle class where values are fast eroding," said Sheilu Srinivasan, president of Dignity Foundation, an NGO. The foundation receives seven to 10 calls a day from distressed parents.